


One More Rescue

by goldenslumber



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 22:55:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenslumber/pseuds/goldenslumber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What do you want, Kingslayer?”</p>
<p>“My wench. She was taken from me, it seems.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	One More Rescue

**Author's Note:**

> A silly little story of just another rescue between the two.

It lay perfectly in place, shrouded in ice. The snow had stopped falling in the middle of the battle, so there was nothing to cover it, only small lines of dusted specks, dancing in the breeze, spilling across the gleaming black and red Valyrian steel blade. The rubies caught the high sun and around him there was shouting, moaning, crying. But that sword lay amidst it all, alone, crimson spilling from the hilt, pooling around the carved roaring lion.   
  
Jaime stopped short when he saw it there. He'd been strutting through the ranks of the aftermath, assessing the losses. One of his shoulders ached abominably and there was blood crusting in his hair. He'd lost his horse, having been thrown off and he was fairly sure the knee cap on his left leg hadn't ever seared and clicked such as it did, before the fight. Which wasn't all that bad, really, compared to the dead men – he actually felt very alive, giddy, rushing veins swooning from the high of battle.  
  
Until he saw that sword.  
  
Jaime turned on the nearest person; a boy who was collecting the important dead to be buried or carried home.  
  
“You, there. Have you seen the Maid of Tarth?”  
  
“No, Ser.”  
  
“If you do, send her my way. Yes?”  
  
The boy nodded. Jaime stalked toward the sword. He examined Oathkeeper for a moment longer, noting that two paces beside it was a glove, rough and torn and bloodied. Jaime stooped and picked up both – he examined the leather garment for a few moments, fingered the hole, clutched it in his left hand and shoved it into his belt. The sword he carried aloof, as he worked his way around in a circle, examining every nearby face; all shoved in the snow, slashed, and dead.  
  
None were hers.  
  
There was a gathering at the tent, he knew, but he made his way around the battlefield instead. Out here, Jaime felt more comfortable. It was ever his place; he could hardly stand court, let alone the blubbering fools in that tent who would not fight on the front line, but made plenty of choices for those that were. Jaime visited the medic set ups, rough and hasty and ringing with the frantic calls of the healers – the wench was not there. In the center of the battlefield, where the Silent Sister's ghosted, the worst lay, and he walked among them, out of place in his Lannister colors and gold hand, peering at those whom the Silent Sister's prayed over.   
  
Little Lew Piper came to him, carrying messages from the others, who demanded his presence. There were things to be done, thought about, decided – they'd won the battle against the wildlings, _those savages_ , and it was time they made their next move against the Gift.  
  
“Your queen is waiting,” little Lew Piper said.  
  
“She is not my queen.” Jaime looked up on the rise of a hill, where the silver queen chose to lift her tent and his lips twisted.  _Sweet sister,_  he thought,  _how long until our queen hangs me, as she did you, in a necklace of rope from the bell tower of the Great Sept in King's Landing?_  “Very well, tell them I am coming.” Piper ran off. Jaime sighed and glanced at Oathkeeper and allowed his eyes to dance around the field for the hundredth time, looking for that broad, freckled face he knew so well.  
  
As he thought, the silver queen was seething by the time he showed up. “I will not have my orders ignored! Not from a Lannister who is lucky to see the sun rise every morning and to still hold a sword.” Daenerys Stormborn eyed Oathkeeper uneasily and one of her blood riders lurched forward, meaning to take it and Jaime whipped the blade out of reach.  
  
“This is mine,” he told the man – who looked just as savage as those wildlings had. But who was he to judge? It was to his betters to decide what he pointed a sword tip at.. and he'd thought he'd left that life behind. Jaime turned his eyes to the queen. “You wanted me.” His lips tugged. “I take not for a bedding, considering all the husbands you have. Or is that the true trouble? Unsatisfied, Your Grace?”  
  
Dany's violet eyes flamed. “You will address your queen respectfully.”  
  
 _You are not my queen,_  he thought. “As you wish, Your Grace.” Jaime bowed mockingly.  
  
She looked as though she wanted to say and do something more, but she reeled herself in. Something she had not in common with her father –  _there is that, at least,_  Jaime thought. “I have called you here for a piece of information. You were much use to us when we took Winterfell. But I must know, this Jon Snow, he who holds the Wall, does he bend the knee well?”  
  
Jaime thought. “He bends the knee just as well as Ned Stark did. Honorably.”  
  
“A bastard has no honor,” spoke a woman on the queen's right – Jaime recognized Stannis' fire whore from anywhere, with her flame colored hair, scarlet dressings and the pulsing ruby at her throat. Melisandre looked beseechingly to the mother of dragons. “I have told you all I know of this Jon Snow. He will not bend to you, for the sake of Stannis.”  
  
Dany dropped her eyes to her hands and drew a hand thoughtfully over the hem of her Dothraki clothes. “What both of you say displeases me,” she said, finally. “You make this Jon Snow out of honor and duty, but I do not think it so. You say he is a miniature Ned Stark, when I have met Arya Stark from across the sea and she says that Jon is no honorable man, there is innocent blood on his hands and fogged thoughts in his mind.”  
  
“Arya Stark worships a false god,” Melisandre insisted. Jaime said nothing. Across his legs sat Oathkeeper and he used the edge of his crimson cloak to swipe off the blood – there was nothing better to obscure blood than a Lannister cloak. Distractedly, as the queen spoke, he pulled the glove from his belt. Most of the blood was soaked in and dried. He rubbed away the worst of it, and pulled the thing onto his left hand, flexing it. It was almost too wide for his narrower palms, but the fingers were long enough and fit tightly. Jaime decided he would wear it.  
  
Dany cleared her throat; her cheeks were flushed in frustration when he raised his eyes. Before Jaime could slip out something that would no doubt offend Her Grace, the flap of the tent was pushed open and a grin spread across his face, at the sight of the stooped figure. “Dear brother! Survived yet another battle, I see. I never thought I'd say it, but it is good to see that noseless face of yours.”  
  
“Pity I can't say the same about yours,” Tyrion replied, smiling. “I saw it just this morning, at breakfast, if I recall correctly. Hasn't changed much.” The dwarf waddled over to the mother of dragons, bowed slightly, took the hand she offered and pressed a kiss to it.  
  
Dany offered no smile. “We were just discussing matters of Jon Snow.”  
  
“Ah, Ned Stark's bastard.” Tyrion took a seat on the queen's left and helped himself to her untouched wine glass – Dany did not object. “We could always offer him his sister, Sansa Stark.”  
  
“The offer was already made,” Dany sighed. “He does not care for her. Same as she for him.”  
  
 _You should have known. Stannis already tried selling him Sansa,_  Jaime thought, tapping his gloved fingers on the table, impatiently. “Mayhaps you offer him a marriage? What is one more husband? That he would not turn down.”  
  
Tyrion cut in before Daenerys could spit in Jaime's direction. “Brother, please. We are not enemies here.”  
  
“Is that what you told our sweet sister as she welcomed you back to King's Landing, when she was threatening to fall beneath the false Aegon and you promised her ships? Or perhaps, those are the last words you gave our father? Tommen must have believed them, before he was thrown from battleme–”  
  
His tale of truths was souring everyone's faces.  
  
But they were used to him. Tyrion had pleaded for his life – for reasons Jaime could never know, and so he was doomed to live and serve the Targaryens, again. This time, at least, he would not hold his tongue as a sixteen year old lad, as before. True, he was no part of Daenerys Targaryen's Queensgaurd, but it was to her he was forced to swear a sword.. so many oaths.. swears for so many things.. protect her, protect her children, never raise a blade to her dragons..  
  
Jaime resolved that he was not in the right place to defend Cersei, or be upset over Tywin after so long, and he could not claim undying fatherly love for Tommen. They were misplaced blames to lay on Tyrion's door –  _Tyrion, who was claimed murderer since birth, welcomed into the world with deeds black and hands running red._  He looked just like any other baby to Jaime, when he'd seen him in the cradle –  _and I looked like any other knight, when I sliced open the last mad Targaryen's throat._  
  
“Still,” Daenerys said, finally, breaking her eyes angrily from Jaime, to land on Tyrion. “If the boy could turn on his own brotherhood and attacks us with his wilding brothers, than he has no honor. Ned Stark's son or no. He has ignored all my messages and chances, sends me my envoy's heads on sticks posted in the snow..” The silver queen shook her head, then stared hard at Jaime again. “What do you have to say on the matter of taking the Wall? I will hear your words as I hear all of my men's.”  
  
 _I am not your man,_  Jaime thought.  
  
“I would tell you that there is no clear path. There is only a few leagues of the Gift left, before we reach Castle Black – the most populated. It would not be difficult to take the castles. They were built to be defended from the north, not south. They have man power, as you've seen, but they are still sloppy and disobedient. They could retreat purely to the top of the Wall, out of our reach, and they will starve eventually, doubtless. By the looks of them, their archers aren't as well as ours...” he trailed off. Then shrugged. “I say go straight for Jon Snow, their leader. Once he falls, they will lose their semblance of fragile power and rank, and they'll fall just as well as any army that loses its commander.”  
  
Dany took his words, did not thank him and told him to get out of her sight.  
  
Jaime was happy to do so. He walked back to his own stash of meager possession that his only remaining squire, little Lew Piper, took after, though since he lost his horse, Glory, and did not expect another, that job would grow easier for the lad. There weren't many men who would make camp around the only Lannister face seen among the mother of dragon's army, so Jaime's tent was far to the side, through a patchy row of thorns and beside a frozen pond.  
  
Podrick was sitting on the bedroll there, nursing a leg injury. “Ser.” He straightened as Jaime approached; his eyes saddened at the sight of Oathkeeper in his fist. “I can not find Lady Brienne.”  
  
“Neither can I. It is strange, the wench shouldn't be so hard to find. She towers over most of the men here.” Jaime worked to unstrap his golden hand and let it fall to the side. He looked a moment at the glove on his left, flexed his fingers, then moved to sit, exhausted as he was – he decided he would change first, feeling mucky, with sweat and blood a fresh smell lingering beneath his nose.  
  
Once changed, Piper showed up, another boy in tow, the same one Jaime had spoken to.  
  
“Ser, the Maid of Tarth, she is found.”  
  
Jaime could not deny the instant energy he found to sit up. “Where?”  
  
“Hostage.”  
  
“Hostage?” he asked in disbelief. “The wench was taken hostage by the wildlings? I was not under the impression wildlings  _took_  hostages.” Jaime certainly wasn't concerned about wildlings before in all his life; he knew nothing about them, honestly, being from the south, and he'd always put faith in the ancient Night's Watch to keep them out – so he felt instantly suspicious when the boy faltered, and wavered.  
  
Piper shifted and kicked the other boy in the calf. Podrick started to rise to his feet, eyes intent on the younger boy, who could not have been more than four-and-ten, with shocking red hair and round brown eyes. “Well, m'lord–”  
  
“I am no lord. Nor of yours.”  
  
“Ser,” the boy finished, lamely. “Them wildlings.. they take wives.”  
  
Jaime raised an eyebrow. “Wives? Are you saying the Maid of Tarth has gone off and married one of these savages while we all fought on?”  
  
“Of course not, Ser. They  _steal_  wives. M'lady should not have been on the battlefield.”  
  
 _She is no Lady, nor yours,_  Jaime thought,  _and certainly not this wildlings._  
  
“How do you know this? Point me toward this husband of hers. I have a hankering to meet him.”  
  
“The wildlings that retreated, them are holed up in a stone tower half a league from here–”  
  
Jamie was on his feet in moments. Podrick stepped half-way into his path before he could be away and Jaime was surprised by something so bold from Brienne's squire, and even more so when he spoke; “A horse? Ser.”  
  
Jaime smiled. “Yes. That would be well.”  
  
It took Podrick around no time to find two horses. They were mares, obedient and gentle-tempered, and as Jaime drew his gloved hand across its white, gray dappled flank, he wondered if the boy found them or stole them or borrowed. He did not ask. Instead, rode faster, in the case the owner happened to find the horse recognizable.  
  
There was clearly already a small staged siege about the tower – if one would call it that. There was ivy lacing up the sides of the structure, flecked with snow, and the weight of the tower had fallen in on itself; by the blackened stones Jaime guessed an ill placed lightening bolt, decades ago. At every window there were wildlings, taunting, cursing, dropping sh*t and flinging weapons – sometimes hitting targets, just as much as the archers on the ground got them back.  
  
Jaime reined up beside Edmund Tully, the overseer of the siege, and offered the most of a smile he could. Edmund liked him not; he could tell the moment the man's face scrunched and narrowed and became suspicious. “What do you want, Kingslayer?”  
  
“My wench. She was taken from me, it seems.”  
  
“ _Your_  wench?” Edmund echoed, then snorted and shook his head and tipped his head back to gaze up at the tower. “She's in there, then, is what you're saying. No doubt being raped at this very moment. Maybe if I order a hush we will hear her cries.” He turned his head, smiling at the Kingslayer. “Not your wench anymore,  _it seems._ ”  
  
If Jaime had two hands, he would have liked to wrap them around the man's throat. “Tarth has sworn loyalty to your queen from the very beginning. What do you think the mother, breaker of chains, will say to you once she hears that you are sitting idly aside as maids are raped?”  
  
Edmund's smile died. “I am working this siege, they will be out by the night–”  
  
“Not soon enough.”  
  
“There is no  _sooner._  Your freak was not the only woman taken–”  
  
Jaime could not take anymore; he was expected to  _be_  respectful to higher ranking men, especially the lord of the Riverlands, not  _teach_  them respect, so he had to take himself away from the temptation. He had better things to do anyhow. “Pod. Stay here and make sure this lout doesn't do anything he'll regret.”  
  
Jaime didn't bother dismounting. He urged the mare forward, shoving his way through the row of archers and he nearly trampled the men around the ring of the tower, who'd been contemplating ways of setting the place on fire, with the intent of smoking them out – though it would only serve to kill the 'hostages'. Jaime shuddered at the thought of the queen's dragons trying to get their hooked claws inside the tower.. he thanked every gods, real or old or new, that Drogon had been sent south, and the two others went west near moments after the battle, to hunt.   
  
The door was old wood, splintered and rotten; the mare made quick work of it. Someone shouted something at his back about his sanity. A roar of chaos welcomed him on the inside, scattering men, others coming at him with axes and spears. None were mounted, and Oathkeeper was easy enough on his hand, when he winded the reins around his stump to keep himself ahorse – he cut at the men below, with no grace, but enough strength to slash faces, cut throat and deflect harmful blows, all the while the mare staggered about, fitfully, making a fuss and trampling more than Jaime dreamed of fighting.  
  
“Wench!” he shouted, looking about. There was a door to a larger room, a hall, most like, and a narrow staircase that went in a spiraling circle upward. “I'm not going to last all day!”  
  
A man came at him, screaming, wielding a two-handed great sword. Steel, that no real savage should have in the first place, and definitely new to the wildling as Jaime hefted a foot out of the saddle and sent it spinning out of his grasp in one kick. He wheeled the mare around and chased the man from the front room into the wider hall – Jaime changed his mind once he saw just how many were waiting in there, spears held taunt, and he turned the mare once more, crushing a person's arm. Two arrows hit his back, barely sinking passed mail, clinking and falling away. A spear aimed at his leg, pierced skin, though and his mare was cut now, blood spilling at an alarming rate.  
  
 _The things I do for love,_  he thinks, exasperatedly, almost distantly, unwittingly, as he throws all his weight at the horse to tell it that,  _yes, he is going to make it climb those damned stairs._  As the hooves clattered loudly on the stone, awkwardly, resisting – teetering more than once to the side and threatening to drop a harmful distance – Jaime saw the reassuring sight of Edmund's men storming the open doorway, filling the tower.  
  
Upstairs, he heard the sound of fighting. He clamored into a open area where tumbled piles of stones lay scattered, and a careful blockage of them creaked overhead, holding the roof together, almost collapsing, but not. Brienne was wrestling and pinning a man impossibly larger than her – her armor was half gone, the leather beneath torn, the half missing side of her face a startling red, gauged and broken – and she was a fearsome thing, sweating, brow furrowed. She shoved the man over many times, before she was rolled and he clutched her throat, and there was panic in those sapphire eyes.  
  
And there was a horrible, heavy, hateful beating in Jaime's chest.  
  
The others in the room were mostly women, and as a knight he was not to kill woman, savage or no. Jaime threw his helm at them, as he dismounted in a fluid shift, and they ducked to avoid it. With the flat of Oathkeeper's blade he slapped the mare's backside, sending it wildly into their way; they scattered.  
  
If he still had two hands he would have gripped the man by his hair and made the wildling look him square in the face, before he sank the sword in his chest, but there was only one hand – and it had to be for the sword. So his foot would have to do.  
  
Jaime kicked the wildling, heaving him off the wench and in one, swift movement, he sunk Oathkeeper through the man's chest; there was a moment when his beady eye met Jaime's, widened, and his mouth tapered into a 'o' before he collapsed to the side, rolling away.  
  
Brienne was on the floor still, a light hand clutching her bruised throat, her eyes were closed flutteringly, and she was gasping. They snapped open at the sound of Jaime's voice; “How come I wasn't invited to the wedding?”  
  
The sight of his familiar smirk drew a breathless wheeze from her.  
  
Around them the Tully men were swarming up the stairs, taking down wildlings. His mare was pacing nervously, now, slowed by the twisted wound in its flank, and the two arrows sticking through the rough leather of the saddle. After sheathing Oathkeeper, he caught the reins and reached out a hand toward Brienne, whom took it and allowed him to pull her to her feet; and she stiffened when his stump snaked around he waist and moved her toward the horse. The jerk of his chin told her to mount.  
  
Reluctantly, she did, and felt a fool, towering over the whole room up there. Jaime payed that no mind and led the mare carefully around corpses and through the men, and took the time to aid it down every step, until they reached the door of the tower, where Brienne ducked her head to fit underneath.  
  
Outside, Podrick rushed forward, pulling his mare next to Brienne's and the squire smiled up at the wench. He asked her if she was hurt, and if he should get a healer, if the blood was hers spilling down her front, and as that ensued, Jaime's smile turned smug, directed at Edmund Tully, who stood stiffly before the tower, arms crossed over chest.  
  
“Found your wench, then, Kingslayer?” Edmund gruffed.  
  
“The one and only.”  
  
“Then get out of my sight. You and your freak.”  
  
Jaime flexed his fingers around the horse's reins and felt the tear in the glove widen. “You will speak to the lady with respect, and address her by her name.”  
  
“Or what?”  
  
“Ask Ron Connington.” Jaime left it at that.  
  
The walk back to camp was exhausting and long, but, most of all, silent. Hard packed snow crunched beneath Jaime's boots and soaked through the soles and more than once Brienne offered to trade. Jaime refused for her to dismount. Podrick offered the same, but Jaime told him to go ahead and secure a healer for Brienne once she arrived – as soon as the boy was gone, the silence went with him.  
  
“You found Oathkeeper,” Brienne sighed, noting the sword at his hip with relief. “I'd thought it would have been lost or stolen.” She would not want to lose Jaime's gift to her; it would have felt a lot like disappointing him somehow.  
  
“Not many people like being associated with lions around here,” Jaime replied. He glanced back and up at her, as she leaned heavily over the mare's neck, peering at him – and her eyes were puzzled.  
  
“You found my glove, too,” she noted, indicating at his hand. “I don't.. understand. Why are you wearing it?”  
  
He turned back to the front, pressing his lips together, as he, too, was puzzled.  _Why had he put on the glove again?_  Jaime shrugged cautiously. “It seemed appropriate. Lucky, actually. A cripple like me always has trouble finding gloves. I don't want to buy a pair and then neglect one. That would be horribly unfair.”  
  
Brienne was confused further, but steered around the subject and remembered her courtesy. “Thank you. For coming to me, in that tower... and defending–” her voice cut short when Jaime suddenly turned around, dropped the reins and peered up at her – his hand gripped her lightly on the thigh and a.. almost hesitant light crossed over Jaime's handsome features.  
  
“I do not wish to be thanked,” he told her.  
  
His fingers burned through the thin fabric of her leather leggings and Brienne felt the missing side of her face sear similarly, the way it always did, when someone stared at her for too long – screaming its presence. “What do you wish for?” she asked.  
  
Jaime was smiling. “What every knight wishes from a maiden he rescues. A kiss.” And before she could process what he'd just announced, Jaime's hand on her thigh jumped to her mailed shirt, and he lurched all his weight back and brought her reeling over the side of the mare – he caught his stump arm around her a little too late, felt her chest collide into his – it hurt, a little, but it was only a breathless sting that could not distract him – and Jaime felt himself losing balance underneath her weight, spun a foot, to catch himself, slipped on a slick bank of snow and the two went tumbling over.  
  
In a dizzy spin, using his arm around the wench's waist, he managed to make it so it was not him landing atop of her or her over him, but both shoulders hit the hard ground – both groaned a discomfort – and Jaime could feel her breath on his face, so close they were.  
  
Before either caught their breath, blinked, or shifted, Jaime's hand raised, touched four gloved fingers to her cheek and turned her mouth into his. The wench went stiff, unyielding and he smiled into her mouth – the peck was over too soon, too short, and the wench's sapphire eyes were impossibly wide, her broad freckled face red.  
  
There, they lay perfectly in place, shrouded in ice.


End file.
